National Poetry Day 2016: BBC Local Poets

Yesterday was the second busiest day of the year for poets (the first is, of course, Valentine's Day). I played my own small part, by being a wee cog in the wonderful Local Poets project that the BBC organised for the day. 40 poets matched to their respect BBC local radio station gave voice to an object that represented the area.

You can hear my tribute to London's Underground map, and I was on BBC Radio London in the evening talking about it (from 2h 51m).

I also popped up on BBC Asian Network to read another poem (from 2h 46m).

And you can hear all the other local poems here.

Listorama: Facebook status updates vol 44

BetaRish is...

Day 4 of the Great National Unravelling, and that smell in the air is that of singed fur as the Elite Reverse Ferret begins!

Oh cold lonely rock in the sea

On for plans

Today’s narrative features resignation as commonplace jeopardy

woke up with an overwhelming desire to catalogue everything

Forms and plans, plans and forms

has run out of runes to read and sooths to say

A faff is as good as a rest

Pokemon never started

would like to be apricating

shook a tailfeather, and it fell off

Sun transit gloria

has the summer cold blues

Too much looking, not enough seeing

is doing the deck shoe squelch

is on the infinite list

is off to be a visionary again

Oh summer where art thou?

is working on the Master Plan, Part Deux

is putting donks on it

I am falling over myself to be balanced

In The Time of Harmony: The Golden Age Is Not In The Past, It Is In The Future

recommends chicken wings for pudding

is forever for ever

is all the glorious trivialities

is dipping for victory

is all the stories that will ever be told

is casting pines before swirls

Hello desk, my old friend

is squeezing the last pips of summer

The glance is all

ooh, proper back to school weather

supposes one has to

The beat goes on, elsewhere

is a tendency

is late, is early, is intense

And the bold, what do they do next?

tiltin’ wiltin’

Data data everywhere and far too much to think

is an unwilling victim of the supposed mercy of systems

is an engine of progress, wheezing slightly on the hard shoulder

is the story next to the story

is a member of The Obvious Club

If the centre cannot hold, why is my stomach growing?

Wanted – only good words today

is an outrider

is on a smackdown crackdown

is having a dalliance with tiredness